Category Archives: Reviews

It’s been a couple of years since I was lucky enough to spend time in Provence, researching a book but mostly going to open-air markets between severe bouts of eating and drinking. All those joys came rushing back to me yesterday afternoon, thanks to a late lunch with the Guy family of Houston’s Bistro Provence. Besides, any meal that starts with wine from Bandol and salad with the tres-crusty-twisty Provencal bread colorfully known as fougasse is guaranteed to remind me of something wonderful somewhere.

One of the beauties of Provencal cooking is that it doesn’t stop cooking when the weather turns hot. After all, being the crown jewel of the South of France and plugging directly into the French Riviera means the weather turns hot fairly often and tends to stay that way. On the other hand, with both Provence and Texas in mind, it’s hard to deny the good sense and great taste of this simply cooked fish served atop a room-temp, mayo-free potato salad. Did I mention that Provence produces some of the best olive oil anywhere?

Then again, here’s what I was saying about not stopping real cooking. In pragmatic terms, this roasted Cornish game hen may heat up your house a bit if you make it at home. But that’s only the cooking. As for the eating, complete with a crust of Dijon mustard and plenty of fresh thyme, this moist, flavorful bird is on its way to picnic food. In fact, chill the Tavel rose and call the outing le picnique, and I am so in.

If your taste buds insist on something with sauce whenever you hear the f-word – that being “French,” naturally – the Guys of Bistro Provence have a super-popular dish for you: honey-lavender roasted duck. Created a while back during a festival about the eight or nine different herbs in herbes de Provence, this duck has been taken off the menu once or twice, only to be returned quickly by mobs that resembled the ones outside the Bastille. Yes, lavender. Yes, honey. Two Provencal signatures. And veal demi-glace ain’t too shabby either.

By this point, just about everybody who cooks around here knows that I’m no chocoholic. Nonetheless, they also know that if their chocolate creation is intense enough, it plugs right into my love of dark-roasted coffee and chicory that I grew up on in New Orleans. Taking the bitter with the sweet, in other words. This double-thick version of mousse-meets-fudge is wonderful, especially when you get a little of the whipped cream with every bite.

Typically, a French-style apple tart is more to my liking – and the one set in front of me yesterday at Bistro Provence was to my liking a lot. It was a bit Franco-American, I’d say, since the stewed apples are enclosed as in the pie that there’s nothing more American than. Yet the flavor profile is French, as in the legendary tart Tatin. Best of all, perhaps, the usual vanilla ice cream (which I never turn down, especially this close to Brenham) is augmented here by cinnamon. Let’s keep the apple pie ball bouncing, shall we, right into this ice cream. I swear: had I dared drink a glass (or three) of pastis, I wouldn’t have needed a plane ticket to get back to Provence at all.

That’s the announcement I heard ringing in my ears yesterday as I embarked upon a journey for Prime Living magazine. My mission, which I chose to accept, was to taste and describe five burgers in Houston that I took to calling “sirloin skyscrapers.” Because the article is for Prime Living’s July/August issue (ah, magazine lead times!), I refuse to ruin my own suspense. But I will say the first of five burgers to be enjoyed and survived was crafted for me by chef Ryan Hildebrand at Triniti.

It’s called the Farm & Sea, and it’s only available at lunch sometimes, since the burger du jour (no, they don’t call it that, though maybe they should) changes almost every day. For sheer extravagance, though, consider a half-pound beef patty not grilled but basted with butter in a saute pan, joining forces beneath gouda cheese on the bun with house-cured bacon and even slices of duck foie gras. That’s the Farm in the title. Representing the Sea, there are thin slices of Japanese nori in lieu of lettuce, plus delightful chunks of lobster.

As a matter of perspective, I went to downtown’s wonderful Samba Grill for a quite different burger last night, and have another stop on the mission as a late lunch today. To find out where and what, of course, you’ll need to wait for the July/August issue of Prime Living, and I suspect even I’ll get hungry again by then. As for me, I’ll just remember the vision below: Chef Ryan going all out in the middle of a busy lunch at Triniti – just to make me a burger to, I hope, live rather than die for.

The sky’s the limit, we always say. But executive chef Junnajet Hurapan, of the new “Euro-Asian” eatery called Blu in Sugar Land’s Town Square, likes to insist there is no limit to the sky. Thus the blue skies high above Texas have inspired the place’s name, while the Thai-born culinarian’s years of cooking as many as 15 different cuisines in New York City have inspired the menu.

Chef Jett, as he’s invariably called, became known to many around Houston when he opened Gigi’s Asian Bistro, a see-and-be-seen upscale dumpling-with-your-martini joint in the Galleria. Now, having made the move, he insists that Gigi’s was “too limited” – being only Asian. His new home, a former effort at a sophisticated sports bar that still wonders exactly what to do with large white screens, ceiling projectors and TVs everywhere, suffers from no such limits.

The food at Blu will come as a surprise to almost anybody who doesn’t live in Fort Bend County, to those who no doubt picture a whitebread suburban sprawl filled with inoffensive chain eateries. Those it has. But according to Amy Karnani, who grew up in her family’s catering business and now owns Blu with her husband, the days of all that one-way traffic on the Southwest Freeway are ending. “We drive to Houston to try all the great new restaurants there,” Amy tells me. “It’s time for Houstonians to come try ours.” She smiles, knowing what has to come next. “And we’re only about 15 minutes from the Heights.”

With a multi-talented chef like Jett in the kitchen, there can be no such thing as too many tastes. The menu reflects this truth, with plenty of European and Asian items listed under “Tapas – Dumplings – small plates,” and then still more under “STARTER: soups – apps – salads.” Despite the assault of uncertain punctuation, there’s absolutely nothing uncertain about the shrimp with Spanish romesco sauce at the top, or about the authentically Indian lamb samosas. Or, just above, about the shu-mai shrimp with ponzu dipping sauce alongside the Singapore satay.

For the most part, as both Chef Jett and Amy walk miles to underline, Blu is a “No Fusion Zone.” In its vision of Euro-Asian Cuisine, the Euro stays Euro and the Asian stays Asian – each, as it were, sleeping on its own side of the bed. Yet a stellar example of when these two are “protesting too much” is the Meatball Lollipops. Jett, after all, learned to make meatballs in a New York Italian restaurant. But it’s a safe bet nobody there taught him how to pull off this oh-so-Asian sweet chili glaze.

While we’re talking Italian food that’s near and dear to Texans’ hearts, how about fried calamari? At Blu, however, fried calamari aren’t just the batter-fried app with the standard (or in some cases, sub-standard) bowl of marinara for dipping. They turn up in a salad – which has to make the whole affair healthy, right? With the tossed greens and creamy dressing, it’s a winner, no matter how good for us it is or isn’t.

Knowing that Chef Jett hails from Thailand – despite his attitude and even his accent of a New Yorker – I had to try his Tom-Yum Soup. It is on Blu’s menu, after all. And while the meaning of Tom-Yum in Thai is totally lost upon me, it’s closeness to “Yum-Yum” has been clear since my first taste many years ago. It’s kind of a Thai spin on hot and sour, though Jett might argue that the Chinese learned it from them – rather spicy, rather sweet, and suffused with the intense citrus notes of lemongrass.

By the time all these variations on starters have been dutifully and carefully sampled (so, that’s the process that always leaves me with clean plates!), there’s really no need or room for a main course. We are intrigued by dozens on things on the menu, though, like the category called “GOURMET SANDWICHES – TACOS,” in addition to the one dubbed “WOK off the street…” (the punctuation festival continues). But we closed with the terrific Crispy Fish, fried whole in a circle-the-wagons position with tamarind, chili and basin. As it might (or might not) be said in Thai: Yum-Yum!

Sometimes in this life, as strange as it sounds, you get to go eat places that you don’t even get to go eat. That’s pretty much what happened last night, when I went to Cozumel on the Mexican Caribbean for a couple hours – by way of Chef Peter Laufer and his Table One right at the Hotel InterContinental on the traffic-snarled 610 Loop in Houston. You might say, we all pretended we were on the beach at a sister resort in Cozumel – perhaps no one pretending more than Chef Peter, who actually had to work this gig.

The disconnect was pretty extreme: six of us sitting in the tiny room off the InterCon’s busy kitchen (as a banquet for 600 trundled ahead somewhere that seemed far away). Though Table One is no Caribeno Palapa (pictured above), the Houston chef did his best to transport us by way of his food. We also got to swap war stories with two essential representatives of the Cozumel resort – Swiss-born GM Henry Walther, plus his Guadalajara-born director of sales and marketing, Martha Paredes. The menu carried us through tortilla chips with fresh salsa and guacamole, ceviche, a very classed-up version of tortilla soup, snapper roasted in banana leaf with guajillo sauce, and a dessert letting arroz con leche share a plate with fresh tango and a super-crispy sopaipilla.

And while it seemed an even longer leap of faith and food, we talked about the resort’s own edition of Alfredo di Roma. Years ago, I became friends with a polished but now-deceased gentleman named Guido Bellanca, who had somehow talked the heirs of Alfredo’s in Rome (that’s right, the place that invented fettuccine Alfredo in 1914, only to see it bastardized almost everywhere) into letting him open the real deal in New York City and in the World Showcase at Disney’s EPCOT. Someday, when I actually make it to the Presidente InterContinental Cozumel Resort & Spa in person, I won’t only feast on chips and salsa, ceviche, tortilla soup, snapper roasted in banana leaf and some kinda tropical dessert. I already have my order in for some fettuccine that Alfredo di Lello would recognize as his own.

In a world in which Japanese sushi is urban, urbane and expensive – especially at places like Uchi that expanded into the Houston market from Austin and Katsuya from Los Angeles – is it even possible that some serious versions of the stuff can be found at a general store that may or may not be a gas station outside Ennis, TX? The sign has trouble holding onto letters, obviously, but you catch the drift quickly and turn in off the winding highway through the bluebonnets. Talk about… Only in America!

Only after lunching and leaving the Bristol General Store and Grill (Bristol being the nearest town, or village, or hamlet, or whatever) did a local suggest the gas pumps weren’t actually functioning anymore. And that seemed a shame, since “sushi at a gas station” was about as dramatic and unexpected as life can get. One of the employees was trying to jump-start someone’s car out front, but I suppose it may have been a family member’s.

So… you enter this little country store that may or may not pump gas, and if you forgo the pleasures of tortilla chips and canned ravioli, you step up to the counter and order from a picture book of entirely legitimate sushi and sashimi. Having pictures is a plus around here, apparently. In this part of the country, a lot more sushi things are fried than we’re used to – batter-fried in the holy name of “tempura” – but otherwise the sushi tastes fresh and delightful. You can do takeout or eat from styrofoam at comfortable shaded picnic tables outside. We’ve traveled a long, wonderful road from brisket and beans, let me tell you!

In a lovely area of north Texas rich with a history of gunfights, cattle drives, and Injun violence, dinner last night was pure steak. Even better, it was served at the steakhouse at Wildcatter Ranch Resort & Spa, a destination about two hours west of Dallas that’s more relaxing than anything that happened nearby at the start of the fabled Goodnight-Loving Trail.

With something over 30 rooms, in cabins where I’m staying but also in the Hotel, Wildcatter Ranch is definitely a surprise out here in this rugged section of Young County, which combines rolling green hills with unexpected outcroppings of rock. Also unexpected, a little bit anyway, is the seriousness about food and wine of the resort’s F&B manager Bob Bratcher. To say that beef is “what’s for dinner” at Wildcatter Ranch is an understatement worthy of John Wayne.

Here, for instance, is my T-Bone before I attacked it with all the ferocity of Quanah Parker, before the area’s last great chief made his peace with the white man and decided Theodore Roosevelt was a great guy to have over for dinner. The beef at the ranch is amazing, and sometimes the sides are even better. The potatoes in that bowl with lots of molten cheese are actually one of the best steakhouse sides I’ve ever tasted. I declare them “potato lasagna.”

Due to the mysteries of the county being “dry,” you have to join a private club to buy anything alcoholic at Wildcatter Ranch; but considering the quality of the wine program, I’d suggest you pledge allegiance to whatever it is right away. Bob took me through his wine room, and I was impressed by not only the vintages he carries but by how well he describes their various charms. Not inappropriately, reds rule the school.

I’m not sure “The Sons of Katie Elder,” made famous by a Hollywood shoot-’em-up starring John Wayne and Dean Martin that’s based on something that happened near here, ate a whole lot of creme brulee. But the dessert turns up in high style at the steakhouse. The creme is creamy and the brulee is crisp, and yes, all’s right with the world. Note the big-city squizzle of chocolate sauce.

Still, I have a single favorite among the desserts at Wildcatter Ranch Steakhouse, and it’s the slightly different bread pudding. All the great flavors are right, as we’d expect after growing up in bread pudding-crazed New Orleans. But instead of a single, tightly pressed loaf or square, this bread pudding is a series of individual cubes, each of which gets a bit crispy and caramelized. Like the old cattle drives organized here by Charles Goodnight (whose first name put the “chuck” in chuckwagon) and Oliver Loving, this bread pudding is an idea whose time has come.

And finally, in the photos above and below, here’s a look at Wildcatter Ranch itself. Above, this is the other bed in my cabin named after the Marlow Brothers, the figures in local history who inspired the movie “The Sons of Katie Elder.” And below, that’s the shortly-after-sunrise view from my veranda, hopefully looking down on terrain I will cover shortly during the resort’s daily trail ride.

Without even the much-ballyhooed “magic of television,” I went to dinner last night at two of my favorite Houston restaurants. The chef and sous chef of both Kata Robata and Haven got together (that’s a quartet of chefs, if you’re counting) to prepare something called an Umami Dinner. And while the dictionary does us no favors by defining/describing umami as “savoriness,” the four chefs went the extra mile to help us understand.

“Chef Hori” (Manabu Horiuchi) was the gracious host on behalf of Kata, but it was hard to forget Randy Evans of Haven was in the kitchen when these Texas Gulf Coast oysters showed up with a minimum of camouflage. Yes, there was something on top called “ghost pepper caviar” plus a very simple mignonette. But mostly what was waiting on these half shells was a glistening, salty-clean taste of the sea. The oysters were expertly paired with some bubbles, California’s Domaine Carneros Brut Rose.

These days, fusion or no fusion, so many culinary threads come together over uncooked fish. This ceviche, for instance, was pleasantly citrusy, complete with the surprise of the “olive oil sorbet.” At the tables, words like ceviche were awash among other words like sushi and sashimi. All in all, the Umami Dinner had nine courses, so each tended to be small and tending toward light.

While cooking definitely understands the concept of “top billing” – which of course goes to the chef-owner or executive chef of each restaurant – there was a good deal of attention paid to each sous chef: Mark Gabriel Medina of Kata Robata and Jean Philippe Gaston of Haven. This, for instance, was Medina’s reinvention of the salad, with grilled leeks, gruyere cheese, mustard seeds, spiced walnuts and a balsamic glaze.

Almost as though this were an Italian dinner, it definitely had a “pasta course” – the pasta made with the fennel Italian cooks use as often as possible. Still, what happened to this pasta after that wasn’t Italian, starting with something called “karasumi,” plus Meyer lemon zest, pine nuts and olive oil. The wine paired with this was the lovely De Westhof Bon Vallon chardonnay.

Mackerel remains something of an acquired taste, whether we euphemize it as “full-flavored” or call it what all old-time Gulf fishermen always call it, “oily.” Still, Chef Hori turned to mackerel for one of the most traditional Japanese dishes of the evening, braising the fish in miso before pairing it up with frisee, kumquats and an intriguing “espuma” tinged with mustard. True to tradition, the dish showed up with a glass of sake, the Kanbara “Bride of the Fox” junmai ginjo.

Chef Randy made a heartfelt joke to the 30 lucky diners, something about not wanting to “mess up” seafood in front of a sushi master like Chef Hori. As big fans of Haven, we’re sure Evans would have done seafood fine. But we were more than happy with his quail “Scotched” eggs, meaning stuffed into a sausage ball, and especially with this veal with beat puree, crispy fried kale chips and unexpected (though unsweet) cocoa nibs The veal dish showed up with the delicious Z Blend from Paraduxx.

When you reach the ninth course of any menu, it’s kinda hard to guess what – if anything – the folks out front want for dessert. Hint: They want something. And second hint: it’s almost certainly chocolate. The four umami dinner chefs came up with a pound cake of dark chocolate and coffee, with a mildly bizarre trio of sesame sherbet, orange marmalade and tamarind curd. Whatever that sounds like to you, it produced nothing but empty dessert plates in Kata Robata’s dining room.